This past week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the Senate and House Foreign Affairs Committees regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which left a U.S. ambassador and three other American staff dead.On Jan. 16, 2013, an attack on a gas plant in Algeria – reportedly organized by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a militant leader with ties to al-Qaeda and extremists throughout North Africa and the Sahara – killed at least 37 hostages and dozens of militants. Such attacks bring into focus the extent of religion-related terrorism in the world today.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that religion-related terrorism increased globally between mid-2007 and mid-2010. In mid-2010, religion-related terrorist groups operated in 73 countries (37%), up from 60 countries (30%) in mid-2007.

The attack on the Algerian gas plant also makes clear that religion-related terrorism can cross international borders or be supported by international networks. A separate analysis by the Pew Forum found that between 2009 and 2011, religion-related terrorist groups reportedly engaged in cross-border attacks or drew on international connections for support in a total of 51 countries (26%).

On Jan. 15, the European Court of Human Rights announced decisions on several high profile religious freedom cases involving the United Kingdom, including two complaints that British law inadequately protects employees’ right to display symbols of their religion in the workplace.

The court found that there had been a violation of religious freedom in the case involving a British Airways employee who was barred from visibly wearing a Christian cross around her neck while at work. However, in the second case involving a nurse in the geriatric ward of a British hospital, the court found that the protection of health and safety on a hospital ward justified her employer’s prohibition on wearing a visible cross necklace.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found that regulations on the wearing of religious symbols increased globally between mid-2007 and mid-2010. In mid-2010, religious attire and other symbols were regulated in 57 countries (29%), up from 21 countries (11%) in mid-2007. Regulations increased in places as diverse as France, where the burqa was banned, and Rwanda, where the government prohibited religious headgear in photos for government documents.

On Friday, French President François Hollande confirmed that French troops are backing the army of Mali to counter Islamists who control the northern part the country. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, nearly one-in-seven countries (15%) were affected by current religion-related wars or the continuing displacement of people from previous religion-related fighting.* In this Aug. 31, 2012 file photo, fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine stand guard in Timbuktu, Mali, as they prepare to publicly lash a member of the Islamic Police found guilty of adultery, according to AP reports. The Mali army attacked Islamist rebels with heavy weapons in the center of the country which divides the insurgent-held north and the government-controlled south, government officials said Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013. France has joined in support of the government of Mali, a former French colony.

Religion-related wars and armed conflicts not only affected countries in the news such as Mali, Afghanistan and Syria, but also conflicts in countries such as Myanmar (Burma), where airstrikes against separatist Kachins began in earnest on Christmas Eve 2012, as reported Al Jazeera. A large number of Kachins are Christians in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.

As with the conflict in Mali, other recent armed conflicts have been triggered by Islamist groups attempting to arrest control of a country or portions of a country, such as the insurgency of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

In addition, millions of people remained displaced from their homes by current or previous conflicts related to religion, including from previous wars in the Palestinian territories, Sudan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Cyprus, collectively.

Religion-related war is also an example of cross-national influences that contribute to social hostilities involving religion or government restrictions on religion. According to a separate analysis by the Pew Forum, influences from abroad were reported to have contributed to religious hostilities or restrictions in 122 of 198 countries, or 62% of all the countries between mid-2009 and 2011.

For a separate discussion of the relationship between restrictions on religion and global security and international diplomacy, see Part V of The Future of Religious Freedom: Global Challenges, edited by Allen D. Hertzke (Oxford University Press, 2013).

* For the purposes of the Pew Forum study, a religion-related war is defined as an armed conflict (involving sustained casualties over time or more than 1,000 battle deaths) in which religious rhetoric is commonly employed to justify the use of force, or in which one or more of the combatants primarily identifies itself or the opposing side by religion.

On March 31, 2013, Prosecutors in Egypt are questioning the popular Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef over allegations of insulting Islam and President Mohammed Morsi, according to the BBC.

And according to Advocated International, on April 2, 2013, Pakistani Christian Martha Bibi reportedly will face a judge on blasphemy charges, which may carry the death sentence.

These are part of a string of incidents in 2012 that have drawn international attention to laws and policies prohibiting blasphemy (remarks or actions considered to be contemptuous of God or the divine) and apostasy (abandoning one’s faith). Taken together, 43 countries (22%) have such laws, according to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion Public Life.

Some incidents from 2012:- In a highly publicized case last summer, Rimsha Masiha, a 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan, was arrested and detained for several weeks after she was accused of burning pages from the Quran. In December, a Pakistani crowd killed a man and then burned his body, apparently for desecrating the Quran.

- In Greece, a man was arrested and charged with blasphemy after he posted satirical references to an Orthodox Christian monk on Facebook.- Amnesty International reported that in December a court in Saudi Arabia proceeded with the prosecution of Raif Badawi for apostasy, a charge which carries the death penalty. Badawi – who founded “Saudi Arabian Liberals”, a website for political and social debate – has been in detention since June 2012. (This broadened application of apostasy laws is discussed by the late Indonesian President Wahid** in a foreword to Silenced, by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Oxford University Press, 2011.)

- However, the Netherlands - one of eight European countries that had a law against blasphemy in 2012 - took steps to repeal its law. The other seven European countries currently with blasphemy laws named by the Pew study are Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Poland. The United Kingdom abolished its blasphemy law in 2008.